Sunday, November 27, 2016

I welcome these early-dark days, and the winter coolness in the shadow of the San Gabriel Mountains. Constantly seeking out quiet, I walk frequently to the chapel at St. Elizabeth of Hungary to pray Vespers.

Above is the doorway of the main church, and a shot of the Westminster Presbyterian Church just south of St. Elizabeth.

Thanksgiving day, before wrapping up my polenta pine nut torte and departing for my friend Julia's,
I walked up to the church as well. I knew the chapel would be closed but the walk was itself lovely, what with the changing leaves, brisk-ish for Southern Cal air, and smell of cooking turkeys wafting o'er the sidewalks.

I sat for a bit in the Mary grotto.

Then I walked around to this side niche and prepared my heart for Advent.

Sunday, November 20, 2016

William Griffith Wilson was born on Nov. 26, 1895. For recovering alcoholics the world over, the fact that the date falls near Thanksgiving is no accident.

Several years ago, California-based producer Dan Carracino and New York City director Kevin Hanlon became fascinated by Bill’s story and the phenomenon of Alcoholics Anonymous. Their documentary “Bill W.” was released in 2012 and recently aired on PBS SoCal.

ANGELUS: Neither of you are alcoholics. Why Bill Wilson?

Kevin: About 10 years ago I happened to be reading Ernest Kurtz’s book about AA history — “Not-God” — which I found to be a page-turner. It’s a fascinating story even if you’re not an alcoholic or don’t have people in your life who are alcoholics. Bill W. was on the precipice of destruction, of death, and found a way out that no one else had been able to find before, at least not on the scale that he did.

Dan: It’s just a fantastic story. No one knew how much was hanging in the balance that afternoon in the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel in Akron, Ohio, where, on May 12, 1935, Bill made the fateful phone call that led him to AA co-founder Dr. Bob Smith. The whole trajectory of the history and treatment of alcoholism changed that afternoon. It changed because Bill figured out that in order to keep sober himself, he had to help another drunk.

"We have a tendency to look for wonder in our experience, and we mistake heroic actions for real heroes. It's one thing to go through a crisis grandly yet quite another to go through life glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, and no one paying even the remotest attention to us. If we are not looking for halos, we at least want something that will make people say, 'What a wonderful man of prayer he is!' or 'What a great woman of devotion she is!' ...To be utterly unnoticeable requires God's spirit in us making us absolutely humanly His. The true test of a saint's life is not successfulness but faithfulness on the level of human life."
To be faithful on the level of human life means that, long before a crisis arises, we have pondered the deepest questions of existence. We have already ordered our lives, hearts, bodies, and blood to the poor, the prisoner, the immigrant, the discriminated against, the disenfranchised and all the powerless of the world--never forgetting that, left to our own devices alone, we, too, are powerless

We have one ear perpetually cocked to the Sermon on the Mount. Our routine of prayer, patience, gratitude, creative nonviolence, hope, and the seeking of beauty is in place.

Monday, November 14, 2016

"Sensitive people, on the other hand, struggle with the rawness of intimacy because genuine intimacy, like heaven, is not something that can be glibly or easily achieved. It’s a life-long struggle, a give and take with many setbacks, a revealing and a hiding, a giving over and a resistance, an ecstasy and a feeling of unworthiness, an acceptance that struggles with real surrender, an altruism that still contains selfishness, a warmth that sometimes turns cold, a commitment that still has some conditions and a hope that struggles to sustain itself.Intimacy isn’t like heaven. It is salvation. It is the kingdom. Thus, like the kingdom, both the road and the gate towards it are narrow, not easily found. So be gentle, patient and forgiving towards others and self in that struggle."

We resist love but we also ceaselessly seek love, insist upon love, blast through every obstacle to burst through with fresh love and new life.

Last week I hiked the Altadena Crest Trail in the San Gabriels, not far north of my apartment.

I was struck by these roots from some native bush--a kind of buchwheat perhaps--that were emerging from and growing along what appeared to be solid rock..

Friday, November 11, 2016

I first became entranced by the weirdness of puppets — and puppeteers — through internationally acclaimed stop-motion animators The Brothers Quay (“Street of Crocodiles,” “In Absentia,” and “This Dream People Call Huma Life”).Of the craft of puppetry, they observe: “That’s a huge legacy that goes back to the 14th century. Our own work probably descends from the turn of the century, with Richard Teschner and Władysław Starewicz. The tradition of European puppets — aside from classical puppetry — was always very symbolic and very serious. It wasn’t for kids. They took on serious metaphysical themes. Growing up in America, we always felt like everything was Rin-Tin-Tin Land. It just felt like everything was gravitating towards kids and they wouldn’t take the metis — the craft — seriously.”Joe Cashore, the puppet-maker, puppeteer, creator and director of Cashore Marionettes, doesn’t reference European masters like Richard Teschner and Władysław Starewicz in his interviews or act. But the metis, and the mystery are very much in evidence.READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

Friday, November 4, 2016

What with the Solemnity of All Saints, the commemoration of All Souls, and the many recent local Day of the Dead celebrations, my thoughts have turned, as they so often do, to burial plans.

Before passing away from Alzheimer’s in 2012, my sainted Protestant mother took me aside to tell me of her own interment desires. With a dreamy look in her eye, she produced a moldering newspaper clipping she’d clearly been poring over for years: an ad for cut-rate caskets. “Look, here’s a nice beaverboard model,” she enthused.

She’d worked it all out. No flowers (people might have to spend money). No cortège to the gravesite, just family (people might have to waste time). No eulogy, just a simple service (people might have to think of something nice to say about her).

I understood completely her impulse to avoid both the death industry and making an unnecessary show. Personally, I would like to be laid to rest in a plain pine box beneath a live oak. That would be after, however, a high Mass. I’m with Servant of God Dorothy Day, who once said, “If I am reincarnated, I hope I come back an opera singer!”

MARIA CALLAS

RING LARDNER

BETTY MacDONALD

LOUISE NEVELSON

"I feel that what people call by the word ‘scavenger’ is really a resurrection."

SVIATOSLAV RICHTER

"During one period of chronic depression, it was impossible for me to live without a plastic lobster that I took with me everywhere."

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

"The world will be saved by beauty."

THE BROTHERS QUAY

"It's that little glint, that privileged look into a keyhole, and realizing suddenly that there's this little universe that's probably suffering and barely breathing, but it's pulsating, vibrating, with its own life. That in itself is a metaphor of the universe."

THE KING: "MAN, I REALLY LIKE VEGAS."

Jesus statue found in Elvis's bedroom at Graceland. Photo by H. King.

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

"Every man's life is a fairy tale written by God's fingers."

ST. THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX

"If you are willing to bear serenely the trial of being displeasing to yourself, then you will be for Jesus a pleasant place of shelter."

BILL MONROE

"Bluegrass has brought more people together and made more friends than any music in the world."

BILL W.

"We'll make it not because we're a better people--but because we're a weaker people."

BILL HICKS

"By the way, if anyone here is in marketing or advertising...kill yourself. Thank you."

MORE FASCINATING PLACES

MY NEW BOOK! HOLY DESPERATION

PRAYING AS IF YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT

As St. Thérèse of Lisieux said, "All prayer arises from incompetence. Otherwise there is no need for it." Self-obsessed, easily distracted, full of petty judgments and irrational fears, I should know. Thoughts on the development of my own "inner life."

MY OTHER BOOKS

PARCHED

SIN, REDEMPTION, AND REHAB

REDEEMED

STUMBLING TOWARD GOD

SHIRT OF FLAME

ROAMING K'TOWN, L.A. WITH THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX

POOR BABY

A CHILD OF THE 60'S LOOKS BACK ON ABORTION

HOLY DAYS AND GOSPEL REFLECTIONS

COLLECTED WRITINGS FROM MAGNIFICAT

STUMBLE: VICE, VIRTUE, AND THE SPACE BETWEEN

ESSAYS ON CRISIS, SALVATION, AND THE DAILY TRAGICOMEDY OF THE CROSS

STRIPPED: CANCER, CULTURE AND THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING

MY GOING-AGAINST-MEDICAL-ADVICE "CANCER MEMOIR"

STRIPPED BOOK TRAILER: NATTERINGS FROM JOSHUA TREE...

LOADED: MONEY AND THE SPIRITUALITY OF ENOUGH

HOW I WENT FROM TRYING TO GET BY ON 27 CENTS A DAY TO A FULL, RICH LIFE OF SERVICE TO MY FELLOW SICK PEOPLE!